How to Get More From Your Net Promoter Score Program

This post is a collaboration with our partner Wootric, the Net Promoter Score platform for boosting customer happiness.

NPS is a simple one-question survey in which you ask your customer “How likely are you to recommend our product to friends or colleagues?” Because NPS is a strong indicator of customer satisfaction across support, product, success, and more, it’s meaningful for all departments. Not only does it indicate how loyal your customers are, it also helps you gauge the entire company’s customer centricity.

One reason why Customer Success teams pay close attention to NPS is that low, decreasing NPS indicates an existing risk of churn. But there’s even more you can do to power up your Customer Health Score and NPS program when you integrate a customer feedback platform with your Customer Success Platform. You can use any system to implement the strategies below. We’ll feature examples from the Wootric-Amity partnership.

1. Bring emotion into your health score equation with NPS.

A lot goes into creating a powerful, actionable health score. From outcome metrics, to usage data, to engagements – there’s a lot of data out there to indicate how healthy your customer truly is. Yet, if you think you’re getting a full picture of your customer, but you’re not asking them exactly how they feel, you’re missing the point.

Not only should NPS be taken into account when calculating health, but it should trigger early warnings when dropping into passive or detractor territory. Everything can look fine in usage data, but a weak NPS indicates your customer is not seeing value – and that’s a red flag. Similarly, a promoter is literally telling you that they get so much value out of your service that they would recommend you – this warrants looking into putting that customer through your customer advocacy playbook.

2. Leverage automation to take your NPS program to the next level.

Gather feedback at key points of the customer journey to give more context and meaning to your NPS score. You can automatically send an NPS email to your key contacts when:

An account goes from a lifecycle stage to another or when they reach specific milestones. For instance, at the end of onboarding, or 90 days after launching.

A Customer Success Manager completes a playbook with the account. Try sending an NPS email when completing a “save at-risk account” or “new executive champion” playbook.

There’s a sudden change in outcome metrics and the way they’re trending.

You can’t save a customer, and they churn. The feedback of a churned customer is invaluable, try triggering one last campaign for those accounts and ask for their feedback.

At the same time, you can automatically survey end users of your application at a regular cadence -- say every 90 or 120 days -- depending on how rapidly your product is evolving. Having your finger on the pulse of end user sentiment can help you avoid surprises in your next QBR.

Drive more responses by surveying users where they are most likely to respond. For key contacts, send automated emails that come directly from your CSM’s email address. This allows the recipient to answer directly from the comfort of their inbox, a place they expect to hear from you.

Amity makes it easy for CSMs to send NPS surveys to their Key Contacts at journey points.

For end users and other customer contacts, trigger the survey within your SaaS product. Surveying these users right in your product experience allows for higher response rates and contextual feedback.

All survey responses appear in your customer feedback dashboard in real-time, so it is easy to read, respond and route for action.

4. Analyze the results of your NPS program quickly.

It is possible to analyze Net Promoter Score data in spreadsheets but most SaaS companies find that cumbersome. Many opt to use a platform to aggregate feedback and analyze the data. Looking at your NPS by customer segment -- by key contacts vs end users, for example -- can give you insights into the “why” behind the score.

Another time saver is auto-tagging. Qualitative feedback that respondents offer is a gold, but it is difficult to mine. Few companies have the resources to manually categorize data. Auto-tagging, either using a look-up list you provide or AI-driven analysis that surfaces themes for you, can get you to action faster. You can also auto-tag feedback by function (Support, Marketing, Product) to more easily route feedback to theses departments.

5. Take action

Taking action to boost customer happiness is precisely how you improve your Net Promoter Score, so this step is critical:

Close the loop. Be sure every customer or user that answers your survey gets a response from you.

Share: If you own the Net Promoter Score program, it is your responsibility to make sure the entire company benefits from NPS data. Route your promoter responses to Marketing, they may want to reach out for a testimonial or a case study. Net Promoter Score data should also appear in your Sales team’s system of record for upsell and referral opportunities. The Product team needs to see feedback related to your application. You may also want to share your NPS dashboard at each all-hands meeting. Everyone should have a stake in improving customer loyalty.

Collaborate: Create a cross-functional Net Promoter Score team (and include a C-suite sponsor) that meets regularly to look at the big picture and prioritizes strategies that will move the needle.

Bonus Tip: Go beyond NPS

If you can only track one customer experience metric, make it Net Promoter Score. As your feedback program matures you may want to consider additional metrics. For example, you may opt to use a CSAT survey to ask end users about their satisfaction. Or, send Customer Effort Score (CES) surveys at the completion of onboarding to understand how that process went from your customer’s perspective.

About the Author

Mathilde is the Manager of Digital Marketing at Amity. After moving from France to complete a degree in Political Science from McGill University, she made her way to Toronto in order to pursue her passion for Marketing and Tech.